On 14 January 1895, a terrible disaster
occurred at Diglake colliery, Bignall Hill. Two hundred and sixty men
and boys descended the pit that day. At 11.30am a spate of water from
the old flooded Rookery pit, augmented from above by the inclement
weather, spewed into the lower regions of the Diglake mine, carrying and
drowning everything in its path. Seventy-eight men and boys perished,
some of the bodies never being recovered. The ones saved owed their
lives to the heroic deed of the six men in the lower part of the
portrait: Mssrs. Bateman, Boulton, Watts, Dodd, Carter, Hinkley.